


Hanged For a Sheep

by cofax



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Episode Related, Gen, Moebius - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-23
Updated: 2009-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 15:51:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cofax/pseuds/cofax
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five thousand years of history, and they're running out of time.</p><p>Moebius tag.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hanged For a Sheep

Someone was poking at him. Jack groaned. Whoever it was didn't take the hint, and the poke became a shake. "Jack, c'mon, wake up." It was Daniel, of course.

"Fine, all right, I'm up already." Jack opened his eyes, but it made no difference. The house was completely dark, but for a slightly paler dark spot where the doorway was. The blotch between Jack and the door had to be Daniel.

"What is it?" Jack whispered, levering himself to a sitting position. Even after months, they still kept a watch; some precautions Jack wasn't willing to let slip, just because they were stuck five thousand years in the past.

Three feet away, Carter must have awoken as well. "What's going on, Daniel?"

"Jaffa are in the village," said Daniel, and that was enough to get them both on their feet and out the door. "Teal'c was behind the potter's shed," whispered Daniel as they trotted cautiously along the path into the village, hampered by the moonless night. Jack was all too conscious of the beaten earth beneath his feet, and how snakes liked to come out after dark and warm themselves on the path. Netta, a young boy of about ten, had died that way last week.

It was easy to die here: disease, famine, accident... Jaffa.

Jack had stopped complaining a few months ago, when he realized that Carter wouldn't meet his eyes anymore. She blamed herself; but Jack had okayed the mission. Whatever damage they'd done, he was responsible for. It wasn't as though they hadn't had a good reason: the intel from Atlantis had scared the Joint Chiefs shitless. They *did* need the ZPM. But SG-1 had been giddy with the chance to play with their new toy, and treated the mission like a fucking second-grade field trip. Jack had let Carter and Daniel's enthusiasm carry him along, as he'd done so many times in the past. Or the future. Whatever; it was a mistake he was hoping Hammond would get the chance to critique for him in person.

They could bust him down to airman if they wanted, so long as he didn't have to watch his team die of animal bite, appendicitis, or any one of the hundreds of things that were so easily treated in the twenty-first century and so fatal here. Yeah, and okay, he'd kind of like a cold beer and his favorite sweatpants, instead of muddy water and a flimsy linen skirt. Jack _really_ hated the skirts.

Teal'c was where Daniel had said, crouched in the shadow of the rough brick kiln next to Pehpet's house. He nodded as the others joined him, Jack poking his head around to peer at the activity in the square. "Square" was a misnomer: the central gathering place of the village was roughly circular, soil trampled flat by children's games and the small market held every ten days. Right now there was a small crowd, most of the village's occupants, gathered in front of the shabby temple, before three flaming torches and several tall figures with familiar silhouettes.

"Horus guards," noted Teal'c in Jack's ear. "I have counted six." Jack nodded, and pulled back into the shadows again.

"Why are they here?" asked Carter, her face a pale circle in the darkness.

"Slaves, probably," answered Daniel. "But why at night?"

Teal'c answered, "To keep the people afraid. Only demons walk abroad at night, therefore the Jaffa are demons, or so the people will believe. It is a technique Apophis employed on many planets, to take advantage of the people's superstitions."

Carter peered around the corner. "Oh, god," she whimpered. "They're taking Iranet's daughters."

Jack looked: the two girls, both on the cusp of puberty, stood uncertainly in front of the Jaffa. Iranet was kneeling, head to the ground, wailing something Jack couldn't decipher. The Jaffa in front struck her aside with his staff; she crumpled, her wails rising to a scream of despair.

The Jaffa ignored her. Instead he pointed at a young boy near the front of the crowd. The boy stepped forward, and then again, looking back behind him. Jack couldn't see his parents' faces, but he didn't need to.

"Jack--" muttered Daniel, and Jack shook his head.

"Can't do it, Daniel." If not entirely for the reasons Carter would give. It was too public, too many witnesses. And some things he couldn't risk changing.

The Jaffa shouted something at the crowd, who began to disperse back to their homes, leaving Iranet on the ground, her cries fading to a whimper. After a few more commands, the Jaffa left, the three new slaves bound loosely with ropes around their necks.

This was the only chance they were going to get. Keeping his voice low, and casual, Jack said, "Carter and Daniel, you go back to the house. T and I are gonna do some recon to make sure they don't come back around."

Carter cocked her head; Jack couldn't see her frown in the darkness. "Sir, are you--"

"Carter."

"Yes, sir."

When the others were gone, Teal'c said, softly, "What is it you intend, O'Neill?"

Jack didn't answer for a moment, and instead led Teal'c away from the square, slipping as quietly as he could through the houses into the brush. If they swung northeast across the fields, they would beat the Jaffa to the crossroads.

Deep in the shadows of the trees, Jack kept moving, and without turning his head, asked, "How much you got left? Three doses, or four?"

There was a long pause. "Three," Teal'c finally admitted, grudgingly. Jack was pretty sure the others hadn't noticed how far Teal'c was stretching the tretonin, doubling and sometimes tripling the time between doses. He was slower, more easily tired, sleeping more. It wasn't the sort of thing Daniel would necessarily pick up on; Jack wasn't sure about Carter. But if they did notice, nobody said anything. On a mission, Teal'c routinely brought enough tretonin for two months; but they'd been here for nearly six, and whatever spare supplies they'd left in the jumper were out of reach.

Conservation of the timeline was one thing, but Jack was damned if he was going to watch Teal'c die. And if Carter was right, they'd probably screwed the timeline already anyway.

"O'Neill," cautioned Teal'c, as they approached the crossroads, staying deep in the shadows of the brush. In the distance, Jack could see the flare of the Jaffa's torches bobbing along the main path that ran along the river towards the city.

"Sshhh," Jack commanded, and dropped flat as the lead Jaffa came nearer. They'd spread out along the narrow path, walking more casually now they didn't have to impress naive villagers.

The first two passed; the boy, stumbling along with his hands bound in front him; another; the girls; two more, chatting softly. And -- yes, for once he was in luck -- the sixth Jaffa, coming along a good ten yards behind his fellows, and most importantly, not carrying a torch.

Jack smiled into the dirt and slipped his right hand into the leather satchel he'd grabbed as they left the house. He tapped Teal'c on the shoulder with his left hand: three fingers, then two, then one. As he hit one, he raised the zat, opened it, and fired.

Number Six staggered and began to fall, but by the time he hit his knees Teal'c was there, propping him up. There was a shout from down the path, the torches bouncing; they were out of time. But it was the work of just a moment for Teal'c to thrust his hand into Number Six's belly and bring it out again. Before the first staff weapon fired, Teal'c was back in the shadows with Jack, stumbling east through the bush.

A blast hit the trees to their right, and they swerved left. "Didja get it?" Jack gasped as they ran.

"Yes." Teal'c was barely breathing hard.

"Okay, they're gonna realize in a minute--" And they had: there was a shout, and then another one, from the Jaffa, and the firing stopped. Jack grinned and slowed to a walk. The Jaffa had to get their buddy back to Ra right away, or he was going to die. Not that Jack would want to be there when Ra found out they'd lost a symbiote; but it had to be better than dying.

Probably.

Teal'c grunted beside him, and a shudder ran over his big frame. Jack realized the symbiote must be in. "How's Junior?"

"... Strange," Teal'c finally admitted. "It is a most unpleasant sensation, after two years of freedom."

"Better than dying, though," Jack offered.

"Indeed."

They broke out of the bush far to the east of the village, and began the long slog back, following narrow ditches and goat paths. As they walked, the sky lightened behind them, green and yellow smearing along the endlessly flat horizon, palms and other trees Jack didn't know black against the dawn.

"So how hard you think Carter's gonna kick my ass, T?"

"Very hard, O'Neill."

"Yeah, that's what I figured. Worth it, though." And he slapped Teal'c on the back as they came up the path to the rattletrap little house, where Daniel sat hunched in the doorway, watching for them.


End file.
